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Dedicated to Father Mario Solarzano of Corinth, Mississippi:

Thank You

I was a child when Mother asked me a question that would define my life. “How many times do you think Jesus wept?”

“If I was Jesus, I’d be crying all the time. Look what He did for us and we’re not very good.” I thought that was a brilliant answer. My mother shook her head, “Anne, good point, but no. I am asking you a Scripture question, not an opinion. How many times did Jesus weep in the Bible?”

These were the days before the Internet. I had no clue. I guessed.

“You’re guessing! Think about your catechism. How many times did Jesus weep?”

“Three? How about he cried three times?”

“WRONG! Do you not pay attention to your catechism? Jesus wept twice in the Bible: the first time was when his friend, Lazarus died  (John 11:35) and the second, when he wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). Now, go read and report back to discuss it with me…” Both reasons for weeping were valid and documented, but I still told Mother I felt like Jesus wept over our choices on earth. It would be many years later, in 1991, I personally felt Jesus weep. I felt his disappointment in me. I began to feel unworthy of His sacrifice on the cross. I withdrew from my Christian walk not because of what He had failed to do – but what I had failed to do – what I did to Him, to myself, and most of all, to my daughter.

I had an abortion on March 9, 1991 at 9:00 AM. I was almost nineteen. Being treated for my Tourette’s syndrome, I had been warned not to get pregnant on the medication. My boyfriend (and later, first husband) and I did not listen – and with the fear of birth defects, I was pressured into termination. I take full responsibility for my “woman’s choice,” because I submitted. Not only would it kill my unborn daughter, it would send me into a wilderness for years: lost, bewildered, and full of something I did not know I had Post Abortion Stress Syndrome. My seminary training on my undergraduate minor did not help me – all it did was further alienate me from my Savior in my feelings of self-hatred and anger.

In January of 1994, I decided to take my own life – because I wanted to be with my daughter. I was in graduate school at West Georgia College. Not in the best of physical health and in the worst mental health of my life, I planned to take my life on a Saturday night, using pills. It would be fast, clean, and I would go to sleep. I was taking an easier way out than what I had done to my daughter, but I justified, I would be with her soon enough. Just as I was planning my evening and writing my letter to my parents, a knock on the door from a noisy neighbor changed everything. I could not get rid of her and to silence her, I agreed to walk to Kennedy Chapel for mass. I was not Catholic, but I knew it ended at 8:00… I had time to put her off, get back home, and do what I needed to do: I remember how logically it “felt” when I locked my apartment door. What I did not know, is that Jesus had sent that neighbor to me to save my life. For that trip resulted into meeting Monsignor Regan, of Carrollton Georgia, the priest who took care of his flock – and those that were just visiting sheep. Spotting a thin girl in the back of his church wearing Doc Martens, he must have felt something was amiss. He cornered me after mass, told my friend to go home (but return in two hours), and engaged me in conversation. In an hour, not only did he have my name and story, he and my neighbor took me to the emergency room for mental health help and I was released into her care. On Monday, they went with me to a doctor. The rest is my redemption history – he also took possession of the pills that would have ended my life.

I owed a priest my very life – and our Jesus. After a year in a PASS support group and therapy, I decided to convert to the faith that saved my life. By then, Monsignor had transferred me into RCIA under two priests in my hometown. They were wonderful with me: and I studied under them before Easter, in RCIA, to become a Roman Catholic. Then, one of the Redemprist Fathers had to talk to me about my first official confession and he had to be honest.

“I can’t give you absolution for the abortion.”

I wept. I would not be given the opportunity to confess my sin of abortion and be given penance. Church rules – a history of Papal decrees – said I could not be given something I so needed – and I could not question the decision, although I could appeal to a higher-ranking church authority for absolution. I was fragile on the subject of my abortion – and my priests did not want to send me back into the darkness where one had found me.  What could they do for Anne Elizabeth? My Redemptrist Fathers knew I had atoned and been redeemed, for had they not worked with me for two years?

Father was prepared to deal with loopholes. “But we can start… on a specific day… Consider it backing up to when you changed your life…What day did you decide to become a Catholic?” We began on that date.

Before the Easter service, I repented of sins from the moment I had decided to become a Catholic. I told my priest, after my first confession, “This feels like I’m lying.” He assured me Jesus knew my heart and I was fine – I was converting: not a fear of excommunication but I did not feel fine. .

For years, I felt something missing in my Catholicism. I would stomp the feeling of anger when I went to Confession that I had no right to do a formal repentance in my faith. My darling priests were taken away from me, their order gone in Georgia and all three priests retired. Then, they died. I began to avoid confession, which is essential to our faith. In those years, I married outside my faith, to my daughter’s father (of whom was divorced, rendering me out of grace in the Church), but reared my son a Catholic. I later divorced, got a dispensation, re-entered grace, married in the Church, and still felt like something was missing. I told this to last surviving priest of my conversion, now an elderly man, via letter, in 2013, and he told me to be at peace. It did not help. He recommended I write my book – and I did. I did it for me. I did it for them. I did it to help women.

In 2015, the very year I released A Woman’s Choice, a fictional indie novel of a post abortive woman’s journey to healing and redemption, Pope Francis issued his year of Jubilation, forever changing the way priests could help post abortive women. On the occasion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015, Pope Francis announced that all priests (during the Jubilee year – ending November 20, 2016) will be allowed in the Sacrament of Penance to remit the penalty of excommunication for abortion, which had been reserved to bishops and certain priests who were given such mandate by their bishop. This policy was made permanent by an apostolic letter titled Misericordia et misera (Mercy and Misery), which was issued on November 21, 2016. I debated if I needed to do it – to participate. I prepared to do it, even telling my current priest I desired such. He said he was ready when I was, I would be granted absolution, and then, suddenly, my priest died. That felt like a punishment of some kind – and I wept.

I felt Jesus still weeping for the loss of another great priest, this time one who could have given me my absolution. Another priest came to my church – yet another one I would have to “tell my story.” I wanted to submit to the authority of the Church…

Months passed. The Year of Jubilation ended and still, I wept. The new decree allowed a permanent forgiveness of women who ask for penance. I counseled women with my story, spoke at a few PASS groups, and continued to make a stand for women who suffer from PASS. On my yearly visit to Corinth, Mississippi to spend the holidays with my husband’s family, I awoke to the word, “Go.”

Go? Where? What? In addition, suddenly, I knew. I knew what “GO” meant: I was to see the local priest and make my formal penance. I did not know the new priest in the town and nervously, I called. I made an appointment to see him, a Father Mario, and then, had my husband drive me to meet him. It was the most terrifying moment of my life – yet another conversation to a priest. But when, in all honesty, had one on the subject let me down?

I asked Father Mario to sit with me for confession, face to face. I gushed out my post abortive story and everything – in a thirty-minute tirade. With the gentleness and training, I try to role model with my own post abortive peers, he simply… Gave me absolution.

I was forgiven.

I did not weep; I did not feel anything but a tremendous feeling of relief. I told him so. In the conference afterwards, he and I talked about the issues of Post Abortion Syndrome, being a mother to a male teenager, how to best direct my book, trying to find my place in this world, and Pope Francis’ Year of Jubilation. In fact, he was not only knowledgeable about the subject, he was amazing. He was kind. Most of all, he understood me. His gentleness reminded me of Monsignor and I made a lifelong friend. The bombshell he gave me was even better. “We’ve had the ability to grant absolution for post abortives in the confessional in my archdiocese for years,” he told me.

Years?

Years.

I then remembered, I had not pursued formal confession since my conversion in 1996 and I lived in Georgia – and I realized that maybe Jesus Christ had a reason for me to go through those years.

I wept.

When I left the Church and got into the car, my husband could tell I had changed. My Catholicism had changed – I had been given something I needed. I was formally forgiven – and I so needed it. Yes, I had been forgiven by my Savior, even by my daughter in heaven, and had even forgiven myself: I just needed to hear it from the very faith that had saved me: I was forgiven.

What was my penance? To always tell my story, to work with post abortives, to use my writing and A Woman’s Choice to tell people about the evils of abortion. Most of all, I was to focus on my son’s faith and role-model by active Church weekly attendance, observe the Holy Days, continuing my daily rosary, not being afraid of the confessional, and focus on my son, not my grief for my deceased daughter. I also learned, just as my Fathers had said over and over:  I had already been forgiven: I just needed the words. I did say that Father Mario is amazing.

For women on this anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, I want to tell you there is hope for your future. If you desire to see a priest in the confessional and be given hope, penance, and redemption, you can have it. You cannot be turned away. If you are Protestant, this blog may not pertain to you, but maybe it will make a point that He is there, waiting to give you forgiveness and love.

For me, I quote my darling Monsignor, a direct quote I used in A Woman’s Choice…

“As he blessed me, making the sign of the cross on my forehead, said, “This is to remind you He loves you.  You are learning to love yourself again, Banner.  True repentance is not just when Jesus Christ forgives us; it is when we forgive ourselves through Him.  Sometimes I think the truest redemption comes to us through that process.  And He does bring us hope for our futures.”

Jesus weeps no more – and neither do I.